Welcome to the class blog of Ben Villarreal's Freshman English 12 Course: Visual and Verbal Literacies! Here you'll find the thoughts, ideas, and burgeoning written work from our class about the multiple literacies we experience.

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26 January 2010

Scott MCCloud- Understanding Comics The introduction is a conversation about the author Scott McCloud and his friend Matt Feazelll. McCloud tells his friend about his new project. McCloud explains that the project is a "Comic book about comics". McCloud then explains what people can get out of reading comics. In bold letters, McCloud tells that definition, base elements, closure, comprehensive theory, creative process and art can be taught through comics. His friend doesn't seem too supportive of his project. He pokes fun at McCloud with a sarcastic attitude by saying that he was too young for his project. Not saying that McCloud is young but meaning that comics have a young person’s interest. In chapter one McCloud tells that he got his inspiration from a friend to read comics when he was in eighth grade. Growing up, he had difficult ties explaining how comics have more meaning than "Bad art, stupid stories and guys in tights". Comics, defined in this chapter are a visual art in sequence Visual art in sequence go back as far as Egyptian hieroglyphics and paintings and engravings from the 1500s. In the Egyptian comic, it is about slavery. There are Egyptian peasants working to harvest crops and they have to pay taxes. Peasants who pay their taxes late are beaten. McCloud point of showing the Egyptian sequence is to demonstrate how long comics have been around but he makes it clear that he does not know where they originated. McCloud introduces history about a 20th century man named William Hogarth. Hogarth’s stories were presented as series of paintings and engravings side by side. In chapter one, McCloud explains how most comics of the century has never been recognized as comics. Photography is also considered as a comic. Helpful airline diagrams that explain the procedure of how to but on an oxygen mask are also comics. McCloud concludes chapter one by saying that it is not easy to define a comic because a lot of things can be considered as comics but most do not have recognition of being comics. Chapter two is not as straight forward as chapter one. Chapter two was based on images. Images don’t always have the same meaning as they appear. McCloud's example of this is on page 26. I believe that he is trying to explain that as readers, we should visualize and understand the artist perspective an image. The pipe comic is a good example. As readers we see the comic, and we think to ourselves that it is a pipe. The artist on the other hand says that is not a pipe. It’s confusing.Chapter one reminded me a lot about the article The Early Comic Strip: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet From 1450 to 1825. Chapter one had similar details about the definition of a comic. I hated the “torture of Saint Erasmus". It was too gross for me. When I saw it, it made me visualize how real the event was. ewwwww10:22 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it